The present invention relates to a magnetic head of a magnetic disk drive unit.
A typical conventional magnetic disk drive unit is shown in FIG. 6. A symbol 100 stands for an enclosure of the disk drive unit. A magnetic disk 102 is accommodated in the enclosure 100 as a data recording medium. An arm 104 is swung by an actuator 106. A suspension 108 is fixed to a front end of the arm 104. A slider 110 is attached to a front end of the suspension 108 to face the magnetic disk 102. To read or write data, the magnetic disk 102 is rotated and the arm 104 is swung about a shaft 105.
FIG. 7 is an enlarged view of the suspension 108 to which the slider 100 is attached. The suspension 108 is an elastic thin metal plate, and the a gimbal section, to which the slider 100 is fixed, is provided to the front end of the suspension 108. A slit encloses the gimbal section 120, and the gimbal section 120 is connected to the front end of the suspension 10i8 by a connecting section 122.
The slider 110 is fixed to the gimbal section 120, and its front end face “A” (see FIG. 8), in which a read/write element has been formed, is headed to the front end of the suspension 108. Cable patterns are formed on the suspension 108 and take a long way to terminals of the slider 110 via the connecting section 122. Note that, a symbol 112 stands for float patterns formed on a disk-side face of the slider 110.
In FIG. 8, the magnetic head is floated by an air stream “AS” caused by the rotation of the magnetic disk 102. The air stream “AS” works to the disk-side face 111 from the rear side of the slider 110. The slider 110 is slightly floated from a surface of the magnetic disk 102 by function of the float patterns 112. With this action, the slider 110 is inclined and floated as shown in FIG. 8, so a lower edge of the front end face “A” including the read/write element is the lowest position close to the surface of the magnetic disk 102.
As described above, the magnetic head is floated from the surface of the magnetic disk 102 by the air stream “AS” caused by the rotation of the magnetic disk 102. And, the arm 104 is swung in the state, in which the slider 110 is floated, so as to read or write data. The magnetic head is actuated at very high speed, so inertia working to the magnetic head should be low. However, as shown in FIGS. 6–8, the end face “A” of the slider 110 including the read/write element is headed to the front end of the suspension 108, so the front end section of the suspension 108 must be extended to form the cable patterns. By extending the front end section of the suspension 108, the inertia working to the magnetic head must be greater.
These days, small size magnetic disk drive units are required, so sizes of magnetic heads are made smaller. Therefore, the conventional magnetic head, in which the front end section of the suspension 108 is forwardly projected from the slider 110, cannot be used for the small size magnetic disk drive unit.